FILMING OF `INSPECTOR GADGET' LEAVES BRODERICK TOPEY-TURVY.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Matthew Broderick is getting a workout - and then some - filming ``Inspector Gadget.''

Broderick, who leads a cast that includes Rupert Everett, Joely Fisher and Andy Dick, spent last week shooting a scene that required him to hang upside-down from wires. ``You can't do that very long without getting nauseous unless you're a yoga person,'' the actor lets us know. Is he a yoga person? ``No.''

As the live-action counterpart to the whimsical Disney cartoon character, Broderick has found himself in all sorts of ``wacky positions.'' He's completed action on sets in which everything is built upside-down while wearing clothes that appear to be falling upward.

For shots in which Matthew's head and various body parts appear to pop off, effects master Stan Winston made molds of the actor's face and body ``for three solid days'' prior to production. ``They photograph all of you, even the hairs on your hands, for this process ... They molded my hands, arms, torso, head ... They have six copies of my head with different expressions. I still don't like walking by them. People say to me, `Do you want one of these when you leave?' No, I really don't,'' Broderick says.

Still, he feels the movie is ``a fun challenge, the kind of Disney movie I remember from when I was a kid. Dick Van Dyke would have been great in this part.''

The trick-laden movie wraps in November. Then, reveals the double Tony winner, he'll jump back into ``the adult world'' - with a revival of ``Night Must Fall'' in New York with Tony Randall's National Actors Theatre company. Rehearsals start in November for a January opening.

Her way

After two years of work, Della Reese has completed a gospel album she hopes to have in the stores for Christmas. It marks, says the ``Touched by an Angel'' co-star, ``the one time in my whole singing career I got to sing what I wanted to, the way I wanted to - because I put up my own money and I had no one to answer to but good taste.'' Della says she hasn't been with a label in a long time, ``because I got tired of singing songs I didn't want to sing.'' However, she says, two major labels are bidding for her self-financed ``Give It to God,'' which she describes as a blend of ``Good inspirational music you can play when you're not feeling so good, tunes you can play when you're happy and want to shout about it, meditative songs ... ''

Incidentally, Della and her husband are also behind ``The Secret Path,'' one of her two upcoming CBS TV movies. ``Path'' awaits an air date. ``Emma's Wish,'' with Joanna Kerns, airs Oct. 18.

In this corner

Dustin Hoffman's Punch Productions and filmmaker Linda Yellen are teaming to make ``On the Bit,'' in which a 50-year-old man passes himself off as 32. Nope, Hoffman isn't even going to try to look the part. Casting is going on now.

Ho-ho-ho

Robert Urich reveals his appearance as grand marshal of this year's Hollywood Christmas Parade will mark the public debut of his and wife Heather's 4-month-old daughter, Allison Grady. ``She's just the love of our lives. We're going to put her in a little Santa suit,'' says the actor, whose latest TV gig has him captaining the new ``Love Boat.'' Urich is very pleased that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is marketing a Christmas Parade ornament with proceeds, at his suggestion, earmarked for the American Cancer Society. ``Obviously, this contribution is very close to me,'' says the cancer survivor. ``Ten years ago, doctors told me they would have sent me home to die. Now, they say there's a 98 percent chance I'll never see that cancer again.'' Incidentally, Urich made an agreement with Aaron Spelling that allows him to take time away from his ``Love Boat'' duties ``for long weekends, when I fly around the country speaking for the American Cancer Society.''

He who laughs last

Spelling's current success - with nine shows on the air this fall - is a remarkable comeback. Says the man whose long, long string of TV hits stretches from ``Charlie's Angels,'' ``Family'' and ``Mod Squad'' to ``Melrose Place,'' ``Beverly Hills, 90210'' and on and on, ``I didn't have a show on the air for six months after `Dynasty' folded, and I'll never forget the headline in a paper `SPELLING DYNASTY DEAD.' It hurt a lot.''

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Matthew Broderick

``Wacky positions''

(2) Della Reese

Doing it her way